Torrone

The first time I ever heard of Divinity is from a episode of Paula Dean, no joke. She was doing candy and cookies that day, and she made these white, whipped looking things with pecans in them. I was listening to the show from the kitchen (I was cooking myself) and didn’t see the prep, otherwise I would have realized she was making candy. Paula Dean aside, I always viewed divinity as a southern thing, as I’ve never seen it around where I am, and my west coast family never made the stuff.

When I saw this in the Wilbur Chocolate Company’s gift shop. I knew I had to try it. I was surprised when I actually saw it with my own eyes, and it looks just like my beloved torrone! It’s a pretty white colored base studded with nuggets of pecans. It’s really pretty and I was excited to try it.

The divinity’s texture is surprisingly soft and fluffy. It’s like a extremely fresh marshmallow in your mouth, but a little more dense.

The flavor is very sweet with a hint of vanilla. You immediately get the buttery taste of the pecans, that accent the wonderful sweetness. I admit I was surprised as to how complex it tasted with such a simple list of ingredients. As this is my first taste of divinity, I’m pretty impressed This is awesome.

I think now I’m going to try and make this at home as there’s many recipes for that. I just have to wait for a day when it’s not humid out. Which mean, ick, I’m going to be waiting a while…

This find was a surprise to be sure. It’s been ages since I’ve seen, much less had any Golden Bonbon torrone/nougat. Yet, there is was just sitting on the shelf of my local Asian Market, just waiting for me to find it. I was delighted to see this East/West fusion of such a classic candy; the greet tea (matcha) flavor blended into Italian torrone. Not to mention I’ve had Golden Bonbon’s nougat in the past and I’ve greatly enjoyed it.

The package is a wonderful grassy green color that catches your eye right away. I love the little window on the front that lets you see each individually wrapped piece. It leaves nothing to the imagination and shows that this candy has nothing to hide.

The nougat comes in nice, bite sized pieces. The color is slightly greenish, from the matcha powder I’m sure. Each peace is amply studded with almonds, which have a wonderful fresh crunch when you bite into them. The nougat texture is soft and chewy, and the almonds and fresh and crunchy. A wonderful texture contrast.

The flavor is sweet at the start, then the grassy flavors of the green tea come forward. They mingle with the nutty notes of the almonds, and I gotta say, it’s really excellent. I haven’t tried anything like it before, and it works really, really well. I love it.

If you’re a fan of matcha, I’d certainly give this a try. It might be a bit adventurous for many traditional nougat lovers, but I can see many would find a new favorite with these.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! No matter what you celebrate, I hope you are having a good time surrounded by loved ones and good food.

I realize that on the surface, this doesn’t seem like a very holiday oriented confection. I thought about reviewing one of the classic candies, like candy canes, or perhaps ones of the new limited editions that was released just for the holidays. But, I wanted something more meaningful. For me, Italian torrone (or nougat, if you prefer) is always associated with Christmas. There’s some foods that you only get once and year, and for my Dad, it’s Italian torrone.

My Mom always buys him a bar for the holidays, and in recent years, I’ve started to do the same. Growing up, I never quite understood what this confection was. My Dad always offered me some, and I didn’t take him up on his offer until me late teens or early twenties. To my surprise, I really liked it. Really liked it. From then on my Dad and I were able to share my love to torrone together, something my Mom and sisters don’t understand.

I think of him whenever I eat it.

This specific torrone is studded with almonds and is enrobed with a lemon flavored white chocolate coating. It’s protected in sturdy plastic, so I’m sure it’s very fresh. The bar smells very strongly of lemon, almost in a soapy way, with a slight almond essence toward the end of it.

The texture is awesome: firm with a edge of softness with a smooth mouth feel that has a slight grain to it. The almonds are fresh and deliver a meaty crunch. The lemon/white chocolate coating is thick and hard, protecting the soft, terribly fresh torrone under it. The flavor is a wonderful mix, and it’s really hard to separate each of the parts from one another (trust me I tried). The lemon flavor is sweet and slightly zesty, and the torrone has notes of nuts and honey. Overall it provides, albeit a little overly sweet, tasty fresh lemon/nougaty flavor, just like you’d expect. I like knowing what to expect from a confection, and this delivers everything I’d anticipated and then some.

Torrone fanatics would love this I think. I’d buy it again, but not regularly. Otherwise it wouldn’t remain such a special holiday treat in my mind.

I’ve always been a fan of Torrone even though I haven’t been able to eat it with great frequency. It was always a treat that was in my household during Christmas, and only because my Dad is crazy for the stuff. He’s recieve a few bars as a gift and would be gone by the end of the day. I’d always be offered some, and as the years went by I grew to appreciate it more and more.

Now, the kind I’m referring to here in the Italian style torrone that’s made up of honey, sugar, eggs whites and nuts and is similar to a nougat. It can be fluffy or on the harder side, depending on what the maker had in mind. It really didn’t matter to me in the end, they all tasted good.

Now when I saw this bar I was immediately taken aback, because it’s labeled as a torrone, but it didn’t look like what I typically was familiar with. It looked more like a nut brittle than a torrone, so I was immensely interested. It’s also from Spain, so I was egar to see how the recipe changed to a different country. I nabbed the bar and did some researching once I was back home. I found a retailer for the El Lobo company, and this is the description on the website:

“El Lobo is a delicious almond and honey turrón candy by the makers of 1880. These candies are 50% smaller than the premium 1880 brand, and have a simpler recipe, which means you can enjoy real D.O. certified Spanish turrón at a less premium price.”

I can supplement that with:

“Incomparable Marcona almonds make up over 65% of this ‘suprema’ quality gourmet bar - the most that can be added before the bars start to fall apart! This ‘suprema’ quality gourmet bar is similar to traditional turrón except that it is made from caramelized sugar and whole fresh (unroasted) almonds, rather than honey and egg white of the traditional turrón.
The almonds are bound together with delicious dark caramel and sandwiched with super thin wafer. Truly the finest in the world. Made by hand in Alicante, Spain.”

What I bought was the almond brittle variety. The candy is gorgeous! The supermodel of candies. It has beautiful whole almonds, perfectly round and well shaped. They’re covered in a thick, slightly sticky hard sugar syrup, which gives them a dark roasted color, much like oil on well tanned skin. On the bottom there’s a light wafer to keep it from sticking to anything.

It feels heavy and well formed. The first bite took some working to break off, as I was trying to cleave off a bite without breaking the whole thing and hurting my teeth.

Oh, YUM! You get the wonderful, roasted nutty flavors of the whole almonds, a sweet, rich honey like flavor from teh syrup, and a good wafer-like blandness that keeps it from being overly sweet. This is good. On top of that the texture is great as the syrup is chewy and crispy at the same time. The almonds have a good meaty chew and it’s just stellar. My only complaint is that it sticks to your teeth a little too much and it’s not fun having to try and pick the pieces out.

Just goes to show that natural and simple can be very, very, very good.